PMI’s Anti-PP Media Campaign

In 2013 leaked internal tobacco industry documents, including powerpoints, revealed the extent of Philip Morris International's (PMI) anti-Plain Packaging campaign in the UK during the previous year. The leaked documents cover the crucial time leading up to, and during, a public consultation run by the British Government as to whether to introduce the public health measure.

Whilst leaked documents are always intuitive, as they are primary material from a company, in this case the nature of the widespread and multi-faceted media campaign is extremely informative.

The tobacco company set out to exploit the political situation in Australia, the first country to introduce the measure and scaremonger over issues such as price, legal threats as well as the threat of illicit cigarettes.

PMI’s campaign was ultimately successful as it helped force the UK government to postpone any decision on plain packs.

“Ensure that plain packaging is not adopted in the UK”

The leaked documents outline that the “overall objective” of the company’s media campaign was to “ensure that PP is not adopted in the UK”;
In order to do this, PMI outlined its “Communication objective” which was to:

“raise awareness with decision-makers and general public about key concerns related to plain packaging – no evidence, impact on trade; legal issues and illicit trade (emphasis in the original):

“Highlight long-term and on-going legal case in Australia” (2-3 yrs);

This “wait and see” strategy would be highly successful and is a deliberate delaying tactic by the industry.

As the Australian McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer noted in October 2013: “Nearly two years after the passage of Australia's plain packaging legislation, and ten months after it came fully into effect, the international legal challenges continue. Slowly. And the tobacco industry, which is directly pursuing one of the challenges and providing support to the others, is telling governments considering stronger tobacco control measures to wait until the challenges are resolved.” [1]

This is exactly what PMI did in the UK.

Media Strategy

The primary media strategy was to persuade the government that plain packaging would make the illicit trade worse. The company once again used third parties to push its message on its behalf, re-iterating many of the same messages it had employed in Australia.

What is the Message?

The documents outline how PMI ran its anti-PP campaign on four main subject areas, but its overarching message for the government was a simple one, that would resonate with a Conservative Government:

"Focus needs to be on economy. Wait and see what happens in Australia (2-3 yrs) before walking into the unknown (IT, compensation, impact on trade) with no evidence it will reduce smoking."

Again, this “wait and see” line is a classic delaying tactic and one the industry has employed for decades. It is also the line that the UK Coalition government would eventually take when it announced that it was shelving the plans for plain packaging.

Indeed, when the measure was announced, one Conservative MP, Mark Field said that introducing plain packaging would have run “counter to our message that we are open for business”.

He added, that it would have cost the Treasury "significant sums of money" because the UK government would have to pay compensation to the tobacco companies, adding that the evidence that plain packaging worked was not yet "rock solid".[2]

“Evidence”

The simple line to be pushed was that there is “No evidence PP will reduce smoking rates”.

The company also continued the tobacco industry’s capture of the “better regulation” debate and co-option of the language of its critics by calling for “evidence-based policy.” The tobacco giant wanted to also argue that, by removing branding, price would become the major factor in competition between the companies. PMI wanted to push the line that lower prices might lead to “higher consumption.”

“Illicit Trade”

PMI outlined four main messages to push on its illicit trade angle, which were identical to messages adopted by other tobacco companies fighting plain packaging in Australia and the UK:

“Will make counterfeiting easier”;

“Will fuel black market for branded packs”;

“Revenue loss to government and legal supply chain”;

“Cuts on resources / more resources needed.”

The message was simple: if the government wanted to introduce the measure it would fuel crime and lose money, which in turn would cut badly needed government resources – just at a time when more resources were needed.

“Impact on trade”

A slightly different angle, which had also been used in Australia, was to argue that plain packaging would impact the legal trade in cigarettes, primarily via pushing up illicit penetration. The presentations outlined how the company needed to argue that: “Plain packaging will hit legal sales revenues (illicit trade) and sales of other products”, which will impact on jobs.

PMI wanted politicians to believe that any further regulatory burden would hit an industry already reeling from the introduction of the display ban. To this end, a media message was “Already face burden and cost of display ban”.

“Legal Implications”

In another classic delaying public relations strategy, PMI sought to exploit the situation in Australia and argue that there would be legal implications for the British government if it adopted plain packaging.

The company wanted to highlight the fact that an Australian legal case had been ongoing for 2-3 years and that there were “significant legal issues associated with plain packaging”, such as International laws, treaties and trademarks.

PMI was keen to explore that plain packaging would, in some way, be a violation of the Human Rights Act. The introduction would also set a “dangerous precedent” in relation to Intellectual Property.

Media Timeline

PMI mapped out a media activity timeline for 2012 with key events planned around the four subject topics outlined above.

Who Are The Messengers?

The media plan then outlined six main types of 3rd party “messengers”, including retail groups, business associations, think tanks, anti-counterfeiting groups, researchers and international organisations. This a classic PR tactic by the tobacco industry: all the unsuspecting public see is a group of so-called “independent” third parties, without realising they all part of a media strategy by a tobacco company.

Retail

Just as retailers had been crucial in PMI’s anti-Point of Sale Display ban campaign, so they were crucial to the company’s anti-plain packaging campaign too. The PowerPoint outlined how the company hoped to mobilise “independent retailers” in seven cities.

So too was Peter Lawrence, the former Vice President of OHIM, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks & Designs) in Alicante, Spain, which is a European Agency supervised by the European Commission. Before working at OHIM, Lawrence worked as Director of Trade Marks & Designs at the UK Patent Office.[3]

Although it is unknown whether Lawrence was paid by PMI for his opposition to plain packaging, within three months he was being quoted by the tobacco industry front group Forest and its anti-plain packaging campaign Hands Off Our Packs (HOOP).

The HOOP website said: “Lawrence's concerns are consistent with a line of significant groups such as the International Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Anti-Counterfeiting Group.” [4]

All three of these are outlined as PMI’s media messengers (see above and below).

Lawrence was also quoted by Imperial Tobacco and JTI in their submissions to the Government’s public consultation on plain packaging.[5][6]

Think Tanks

The campaign strategy identified the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and The TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) as two think tanks that would push the anti-plain packaging message. The IEA has been particularly vocal on plain packaging. It was revealed in 2013 that the IEA receives annual funding from British American Tobacco.[7][8]

Anti-Illicit Trade

PMI wanted to use the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, which has the big four tobacco companies as members and had originally been set up by BAT in the eighties and undisclosed “WOR” as the two messengers. All the evidence suggests that WOR is in fact the ex-Policeman, Will O’Reilly, who is being employed by PMI to front its campaign to scaremonger over illicit.

Researchers

The consultancy firms LECG and Transcrime were identified as researchers to be used in the campaign. Both organisations had worked on anti-plain packaging reports for Philip Morris International before.[9][10][11]

Moreover, research undertaken by the University of Bath on Transcrime notes that “PMI's success in bringing an academic body with a solid track record of criminological research into the debate on the illicit trade represents a new development which lends academic capital to the industry's efforts to represent regulation as the main driver of illicit tobacco.”

The article adds: “Tobacco companies optimise this effect by failing to mention PMI's funding when using Transcrime's work in policy debates, creating the impression of a broad independent constituency in favour of the industry's arguments against plain packaging”. [12]

Target Audiences and Media

PMI identified which local and national media to be targeted by the campaign. The target audience included “Key decision makers, MPs, Civil Servants, Business elite, general public.”

The media was split into regional and national. “Regional radio and print were targeted in nine strategic cities: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, London, Bristol and Cardiff.”

For the national media, the two most influential broadcast media, Sky News and BBC were targeted. As for print, the list included: “FT [Financial Times], Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, The Times, Mail on Sunday, Sunday People, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People, and Spectator.”
The trade press, such as The Grocer, Retail Weekly, Independent Retail News and Scottish Grocer also formed part of the target audience as were Intellectual Property and legal reviews.

Finally, PMI outlined which media and PR consultants would be used on the campaign, including: